Memorial students part of national skills competition.
Memorial High students join Team Nova Scotia for national competition
Three students from Memorial Composite High School are heading to the Skills Canada national competition in Winnipeg as part of Team Nova Scotia.
Taking part in the national event are Spencer Brown, who won gold in electrical at the Nova Scotia Skills Competition held recently at the Nova Scotia Community College campus in Port Hawkesbury, and the robotics team of Noah Murrant and Ethan Evans, who took silver at the provincial competition at the NSCC Waterfront in Dartmouth.
The team that won gold in robotics didn’t accept the opportunity to go to nationals, which paved the way for silver medallists Murrant, a Grade 11 student, and Evans, a Grade 10 student, to attend.
“I’m pretty excited to be competing in the nationals,” said Brown, who is in Grade 12.
Murrant and Evans are being supported and mentored by Paul Standing and the engineering department at Cape Breton University.
Each year more than 500 young people compete in Skills Canada’s national competition, the only national, multi-trade and technology competition for students and apprentices in the country.
Kenny Collier, head of the vocational department at Memorial said the Cape Breton students will be competing against the best in the country from each of the provinces, adding that over the years Memorial has sent more than 30 students to compete in the nationals in the various trades.
The main competition events take place June 1-2 at the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg.
“It’s an Olympic-style event. (Members of) Team Nova Scotia will travel, participate in events and support each other as a team,” Collier said.
The cost for the students to attend — including accommodations, flight and some meals — are covered by a Work-It grant through communitybased learning.
Murrant and Evans, who both live on the Northside, have been travelling to CBU to build a second robot and prepare for the competition.
“We built a robot from parts and it’s radio-controlled and we are both pilots,” Murrant said. “It is incredible to be competing at the national level. During the provincials our robot gave us some intense moments, but it was fun. We had to fix a few parts during the competition, but we managed to win silver. We have a lot more time to troubleshoot and prepare (for nationals).”
They are taking two robots to the competition.
“It’s a pretty big thing to compete at national, said Evans.